


If Only I Could See You Once Again

by AxlotlAtHeart



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Don't copy to another site, Extreme fan service, F/M, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Time Travel Fix-It, but only kind of you'll see, like super duper canon divergent, sort of set between episodes 5 and 6, was started before the end of season 8 came out so not everything is accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 17:39:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxlotlAtHeart/pseuds/AxlotlAtHeart
Summary: Sansa is told there may be a way to get Theon back.





	If Only I Could See You Once Again

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this sometime after episode 4 but didn't finish it until now...but I didn't want to change what I had so there's very few mentions of what went down in episodes 5&6 because they hadn't happened yet. Shameless self indulgent Theonsa fan service. Get ready for some bullshit magical explanations because I want to bring Theon back no matter how ridiculous the reasoning ok don't @ me  
> (Also, is it sacrilegious to use a classic Throbb quote in a Theonsa fic - not once, but TWICE? Will I be persecuted by the shipper gods? Whatever, read my story and enjoy it, dammit.)

It was _cold_ in the Godswood.

In truth, it had not been warm in the North for years, not since the last vestiges of spring left the country. But on this evening, the cold that penetrated the wood was absolute and chilling, seeping in past any amount of warm layers a person could wear.

Sansa shivered as she walked through the gates. The air here was _still,_ the presence of trees seeming to block any trace of wind. Or perhaps it was the presence of the Gods. She was not sure which she believed.

It was appropriate, she thought, that it should be cold here. The Gods, if they were real, had no more mercy than winter.

The snow crunched softly under her feet as she approached the heart tree, blood red leaves standing out against the black and white of the rest of the wood. Sansa found it hard to suppress a shudder when she came close, found it hard not to imagine the weight of that heavy white dress, the way her tightly braided hair had pulled at her scalp…

Seeing it during the day was easier, but now as the dusk was settling…it reminded her far too much of _that night._ It was more than fear she felt – it was anger. Anger that some of her worst memories had been _here,_ in the home that she had so longed to get back to. That a place as sacred as the Godswood should become tainted.

She shut her eyes once, brushing the memories away, keeping them shut until all that remained was what was here, what was now.

But then she opened her eyes, and she saw the _tree,_ and without warning she remembered Theon. And that was worse, that was _so much worse,_ because it hit her from nowhere. She’d tried to block it all out, but at times it would all came flooding back in an instant, choking her, wracking her with sobs. The way he had looked at her as they ate together in the courtyard, and she’d known, she’d _known,_ that if they lived she would never want him to leave her side.

And her own unwanted imaginings of his final moments. Had he been afraid? How long had he lived, after the spear had gone through him? Had he known, even for a second, that Arya was there, that his death was not in vain?

And his body…she had been the one to clean the wounds, after, to dress him for the funeral. The tears had fallen at first, her hands shaking as she washed him, arranged everything, repaired the gaping hole in his armor. That had been when she cried the hardest for him. No one was there to see her. But slowly a numbness had come on her, every stitch or stroke turning her veins to steel. It all became automatic, like she wasn’t really there, and he wasn’t either. She had half believed they weren’t.

It hadn’t _looked_ real _,_ the thing she had burned. Just a shell, a copy. It hadn’t been him.

_I should have been with him,_ she thought, not for the first time. While she had been cowering in the crypts, he had been out here dying for her brother. If she had stayed, if she had been there with him at the end…even if she had been unable to help him, he deserved to at least have someone with him, to hold him…

Tears stung the corners of her eyes, and she let them fall. No one else was there to see.

For a long time she stood there, in silence and solitude.

She had been there a while when she heard a noise from the other side of the tree. She turned to look, and jumped. Bran sat there in his chair, watching her.

“Bran,” she said, half laughing, half exasperated. “you’ve got to not – not sneak up like that.”

The faintest smile crossed her brother’s face. “I was here first. It’s you who snuck up on me.”

Sansa sighed. She must have missed him completely, as lost in her thoughts as she was.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, shaking off her previous train of thought. “Have you been out long? You’ll get cold.”

“Maester Wolkan is coming back for me,” he said simply.

“I’ll leave you alone,” said Sansa, “I was just…I don’t know what I’m doing here, really. It seemed like the right place to be. I don’t know why.”

Bran was looking wisely back at her. “There is no reason,” he said, “It’s just where you were meant to be right now.”

Sansa sighed. She was almost used to her brother’s new and strange demeanor, but it didn’t change the fact that he was not the best person to hold a conversation with.

“Do you think things do happen for a reason?” she asked on impulse, “Is there a – a point to anything, or are we all just…wandering aimlessly?”

He looked thoughtful. “Things happen because they are meant to,” he said slowly, “There may be a point, or there may not be. But everything is meant to be, whether it leads to a purpose or not.”

_And what is my purpose?_ She wanted to ask. But she wasn’t sure it would get her anywhere. Or perhaps she simply did not want to know his answer.

“Not everything seems that way,” she said bitterly, “Sometimes things must just _happen,_ there can’t be meaning for everything. Not all of it.” Of all the awful things that had happened to her, that had happened to her family…if she thought it was meant to happen, it just made it all worse.

If Bran could sense what she was thinking, he said nothing. Sansa sighed, knowing she likely wouldn’t get anything more from him.

“You’re alone,” he said suddenly, “You don’t know what to do, now that the war is over. You’ve gained so much…but you have lost so much as well. It’s lonesome.”

Her thoughts began drifting back to Theon, and she quickly blocked them away again. If she kept only thinking of what she had lost she would go mad.

Bran was still looking at her. “I know what it is to be alone,” he said, “And I know what it means to wonder about purpose. I did that for years, before I realized what my true purpose was.”

“Your purpose...as – whatever you are now, is that right?”

Bran’s mouth turned up in an almost sly smile. “Perhaps. And perhaps there is another purpose that hasn’t had a chance to be shown yet.”

“Perhaps?”

He just went on smiling, his gaze turning back to the great Weirwood. “I’m the last of my kind. Do you know that, Sansa?”

“The last…Three Eyed Raven, you mean?”

“Not just that. Soon I will be one of the last pieces of magic in the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all fading. Haven’t you noticed? It began when the White Walkers were defeated. Now the last of the dragons are dying. The Children have been disappearing for years. Soon there won’t be any magic, anymore. The time for all that is ending.”

Sansa was not sure what she thought about that. She believed Bran; it was hard not to believe someone who could see all of time, but she was still not sure what it all _meant._ Magic, the way he spoke of it, was not something that had touched her in the way it had touched him.

“What does that mean for you?” she asked.

“I will always be the Three Eyed Raven,” he said, “And I will always be Brandon Stark. I will keep the memories, all that I know about the past and the future, but it won’t be possible for me to travel anymore. Soon I will no longer be able to see through the trees. That’s why I had to become how I am in the first place; the world’s memory needed a new vessel before the ability to do what I do left the world forever.”

“Oh.”

He looked back at the tree, gazing up at the canopy. “It’s stronger right now,” he said quietly, “All the magic; it’s all getting stronger, the strongest it has ever been or ever will be, just for a while before it dies. Can’t you feel it?”

Sansa stood still, and listened. She tried, for her brother’s sake, to understand what he was talking about, but all she felt was the penetrating cold. All she heard was the faint whisper of leaves.

“I can’t feel anything, Bran,” she said, “I’m sorry. What do you mean, though…when you said it was all getting stronger? Are _you_ getting stronger?”

“I am,” he said, “I can do things now, for a little while, that I couldn’t before, and won’t be able to do again.”

She was curious, despite herself. “What sorts of things?”

Bran was looking strangely at her, almost calculating. For some reason it gave her a chill.

“I’ve always been able to go back,” he said quietly, “To go back – and watch things. Observe them. But I could never change the past. It has already been written. But now, for a short time before the gap closes, I think I can. Change things, things that have happened already.”

Sansa’s breath caught in her throat. Was he suggesting what she thought he was?

“Bran…are you saying you can go back and – and make things different than how they are now?”

“I could.”

“But then we could…we could…” she came close to him, speaking earnestly. “Bran, we could fix _everything._ If you went back to before – before any of this happened…you could make us all stay at Winterfell, make our father refuse the king’s offer…he never would have died, the war would never have started, none of this would ever have happened. Everything could go back to how it was before.”

Without really meaning to, she already started thinking about what it would be like…in a moment her parents could be back, her brothers…Robert would still be on the throne, they would all be safe and at home…

And Theon…Theon would still be alive, laughing in the yard with Robb…

All of it felt so real for a moment; she turned, half expecting to see her mother herself walking towards her.

It was Bran’s face that shattered the vision. He looked, for the first time since she had reunited with him, almost sad. “I could do that,” he said, “But I won’t.”

Her heart sank. “It wouldn’t really be that easy, would it?” she said in a small voice.

Bran shook his head. “It was all so long ago,” he said, “So much has changed since then, so many choices leading to other choices and other consequences. How do we know it wouldn’t turn out the same as it is now anyway?”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be,” she said, still defiant.

“Not all that happened was bad, Sansa,” he said, “Would you want Joffrey to still be alive? Or Ramsay, or Lord Baelish?”

A cold wave of fury hit her at the thought of them. At the thought of people like that being _allowed_ to live. But then again…none of them would have hurt her, if things had stayed the same. None of them would have _met_ her.

“Too much has happened since then,” said Bran, “We don’t know if the world would be better. It might turn out to be a lot worse. I could do it, but it would not be wise. For the sake of the world.”

“Why did you tell me, then?” she said bitterly, “You knew I would want to go back, why would you tell me you could just to take it all away again?”

“There are still things I could change,” he said, “Things that happened not as long ago, and wouldn’t have as severe a consequence if they were different.”

He was looking at her as if he knew what she wanted him to do – which was absurd, because she herself still did not know – and what she _would_ end up asking of him. She remembered then, with another chill, that he probably did know just that.

“Is there anything you would like me to change, Sansa?” he asked almost gently, “A thing that happened not long ago, that wouldn’t change much else…a person you want to see again?”

Sansa’s eyes went to the tree. The Gods had so much power, both to give life and take it. And here sat her little brother, offering to alter their will for her sake. Why?

The tree…an idea came to her, so strongly and fiercely it seemed to have been there all along, planted and waiting to sprout. But no…no, it couldn’t be that easy…

“Why would you do this for me?” she asked instead, “You could make this offer to anyone, why me?”

“Because you were the one who came,” he said simply.

She looked away, trying to keep her breath steady. It wasn’t possible, it _shouldn’t_ be possible. But here was her chance, right now written in front of her. All she needed to do was ask.

“He was a good man, Sansa,” said Bran, “He shouldn’t have died like that.”

“Then why did you let him?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, revealing a bitterness she hadn’t known until now that she felt towards her brother. It hadn’t been his fault, she knew that. But the resentment sat there and ate at her all the same.

She regretted saying it the moment she did. She opened her mouth to apologize, but Bran was already speaking, seemingly unoffended.

“If he hadn’t died then, you would never be doing what you are doing now,” he said, “And what lies between you would not be the same. It wouldn’t be exactly as it needs to be.”

“And what does it need to be?”

The faintest ghost of a smile crossed her brother’s face. “Go and ask him yourself.”

Sansa glanced back towards the castle, heart hammering against her ribs. Would he really be up there, alive and well? It _shouldn’t_ be possible…

“You’re sure…you’re sure it wouldn’t change too much?”

“I’m sure. You ought to go see him. Go to his room, the same one he grew up in. He’ll be there by the time you reach it. It won’t take very long.”

“What…what will it be like? For him?”

“He won’t remember. Neither will anyone else. Only you and me.”

Breathlessly, she stared out at the turrets and curves of Winterfell, trying to find the room she was to go to, looking for a light in the window. She would see him again, in only a moment, really see him again…it was almost too much.

_I will tell him everything I never said,_ she promised herself, _This is our second chance, he deserves the best of it._

Bran seemed to sense her nervousness. “Sansa,” he said as she approached the gate, “He won’t notice anything strange. You saw him just this morning. But be gentle with him, it was a serious wound.”

Sansa hesitated, then rushed to her little brother, throwing her arms around him. “Bran,” she said, her voice choked, “Bran, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. It was meant to happen, and so it did.”

Sansa’s hand shook as she reached for the door. She waited, dragging out the moment, breathing uneven. What if Bran had been wrong? What if something had gone wrong, and he wasn’t there at all? The alternative, that she was really about to see him again, was almost worse because she didn’t know what she would _do._ What would it be like? What would _he_ be like?

She took deep breaths, steadying herself, preparing herself to only be dreadfully disappointed. And then she knocked, refusing to waste another moment.

A few seconds silence, in which she thought for certain something had happened and he wasn’t coming, he was still gone – and then the door opened.

Theon looked surprised to see her. She didn’t think – hadn’t even though about disturbing him, all she could think was that it was really _him,_ he was here, alive and warm and standing in front of her, she couldn’t breathe…

“Sansa?” he said – it was really his voice, low and soft, talking to her as though nothing was wrong, as though nothing had happened – she thought she would never hear that voice again.

“Do you need something? You can come in.”

He moved aside to let her in the room, but she didn’t move. She _couldn’t_ move, Gods, it was really him, standing right there…she wanted to hold him, to touch every part of him just to be sure his flesh was warm and alive and _real._

He frowned, looking concerned. “Is something the matter? What is it?”

_He sounds as though he is worried about me,_ she thought, and the irony of it almost made her laugh out loud. She didn’t think, just threw her arms around his neck and buried her face into his shoulder, letting the tears finally fall.

He staggered a little when she hugged him, but in a moment his arms went cautiously around her too. Real arms, real warm, steady hands, all of him real and impossibly alive. She held him tighter, wishing she never had to let go.

Eventually she did; or he did, rather, and held her at arm’s length, still looking worried. “Are you alright?”

This time she did laugh. “I am,” she said, wiping the tears from her face though more kept coming anyway, “I’m just…it’s silly, but I’m…I’m really glad you’re still here.”

His face softened. The smallest hint of a smile crossed it. “I am too,” he said.

“I was just…thinking…” what did she say? What in the world did she tell him? Not the truth – she decided on that fairly quickly. “I couldn’t help thinking about…about what could have happened. If you…if you hadn’t made it…”

Theon took a step closer, looking up at her – up? Had she always dwarfed him just slightly? All the little things she had never noticed, all the things she never said…and she could say them now.

“I’m here, Sansa,” he said, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know. I know you are.”

She couldn’t keep her eyes off him, couldn’t stop looking at him, half afraid if she turned away for a second he would fade away. He was _standing –_ she remembered, suddenly…

“You should sit down,” she said, “You don’t want to – to tire yourself too much.”

“I’m fine. Truly, I am.”

She led him to a chair anyway, noticing how he winced slightly as he sat down. How badly had he been hurt, this version of him? Fatally or not, if it was anything like what she remembered…

“Let me see,” she said, “I want to see how you’re healing.”

He looked hesitant, but lifted his shirt away from the wound on his stomach.

Her breath caught when she saw it, she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t been prepared…

It was only a red line, stitched well but still raw – looking. And that was all. She remembered, couldn’t stop herself from remembering as she looked at it, the horrible _hole_ that had been there before, the pale flesh around it that she’d touched, cold and dead and inert…

Hands trembling, she reached out and touched, very gently, the injured skin. The faint, old scars crisscrossing around it, skin she herself had cleaned blood away from only weeks before. Theon did not flinch when she touched him, she had half expected him to. Perhaps he was used to her touch by now…she wondered for the first time exactly how close they had become these past days, in his memory at least.

She looked up to see him watching her. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

He gave a half shrug. “Sometimes. It’s getting better.”

Sansa knew it would seem strange to him, and part of her didn’t even want to see…but she had to know, had to be absolutely sure, it was the only way she could truly accept that he was _here._

“Turn around,” she said, “Please.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Just…I want to check something.”

Still looking questioningly at her, he turned. Gently, she lifted his clothes to look at his back. She had to know.

There was no exit wound. Only another patch of pale skin and faded scars. She sighed in relief, tears threatening again. He was alright…he was alive and _whole._

As she went to sit down again her eye caught something that sent a chill down her back. There, on his bedside table, a metal pin carved with the Stark direwolf. She picked it up with a shaking hand. How…how…

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” said Theon, a touch of awkwardness in his voice, “The maester told me…he told me you left it there for me after I was hurt. It was there when I woke up. Is that…?”

Sansa looked at the pin in her hand, remembering with disturbing vividness slipping it under his armor, on the cold shell that wasn’t really him. If she hadn’t remembered so clearly, it would have just felt like a dream.

_Perhaps that’s all it is now,_ she thought, _just another bad dream._

A smile crept across her face. “Of course,” she said, “Of course, I left it. I…I thought it would be…” what? Good luck? Health? What had she meant by it, in this reality?

What had she meant by it in the other?

And then she knew what to do. It would hurt – Gods, it would hurt – but she had to. Leaning forward, she carefully pinned the direwolf to the front of his clothing, right over his heart. His _beating_ heart. All she could think of as she did it was the body, the flames. She thought of them, and let the thoughts hurt. She thought of the white face, cold, dead skin, violently and clearly, and then looked back at the _real_ Theon, stared at him as intently as she could until the image of him in her head became what was in front of her, not what was in her memory. There he was; eyes slightly nervous but open and alert, warm skin, tousled hair…the fact that she could _see_ him breathing, mark every breath of life…that was the greatest gift in the world.

“Theon,” she said softly, “I know you have your sister, I know you have your home. But if you wanted to stay here, even just for a little while…you’d be welcome. You are always welcome here.”

“I…I had thought about it,” he said, “I will, if you want me. As long as you want me here.”

She took his hand. She couldn’t help it; she had to _feel_ him.

“If you do, I want it to be as family. I know you never felt like family before, but you are, you always were. And always will be. In…in whatever way…” and then it came to her, slowly yet suddenly, the idea dawning on her as clearly as if it had been there all along. This was what she had meant to say, the whole time. What she had wanted to do. This was why he’d had to come back.

“Theon…if you stay… I want you to let me be your wife. I’ve wanted it a long time. I don’t care what anybody else says, I don’t care what anybody else thinks, I want you. I chose you, the night of the battle. I didn’t realize it then, but I realize it now – you’re the one I want. After everything, after all the choices that have been made for me…it’s you that I’ve chosen.” She paused, looking at his shocked face, “If you’ll have me.”

He stared back at her, stunned. She herself could not quite believe she had just said what she did. But it was true, every word of it, she had known as soon as she started speaking. This was her choice.

Slowly, tenderly, he reached out and cupped her face in one hand. She could feel it trembling.

“I’ll have you,” he said, “Now and always.”

She didn’t think, just leaned forward into him. Their lips met only for a moment, then their foreheads, and then she had thrown her arms around him again, taking in every inch of him, trying to hold on tightly enough that he could never leave her again.

“Don’t you leave me,” she whispered into his shoulder, “I almost lost you once. It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t,” she heard him say back.

Sansa squeezed her eyes shut, breathing in the smell of him. She would keep him here as long as she could.


End file.
